ANTI-DRUG AGENCIES GATHERING IN BLUE SPRINGS

Jackson County's full array of anti-drug agencies will gather Monday
at the Adams Pointe Marriott in Blue Springs to demonstrate the
impact of the county's 12-year-old COMBAT anti-drug tax.

The COMBAT Information and Effectiveness Fair features about 80
agencies from law enforcement agencies and drug prevention and
treatment programs funded by COMBAT.

"The intent of the fair is to inform people that this is a tangible
thing - there are real results," said Mike Shanahan, director of the
Jackson County Drug Enforcement Task Force, one of the law
enforcement programs funded through COMBAT.

The DETF is a special drug unit of about 20 officers from 13 local
law enforcement departments. The unit receives about $1.8 million in
annual funding from COMBAT.

Formed in the mid-1980s as an ad-hoc unit to address metrowide drug
issues, the DETF has evolved into the premier drug-busting agency in
the county, targeting high-volume drug manufacturers and traffickers.
The DETF led the battle against methamphetamine production in the
county, an effort that has been dramatically successful.

In 1997, for example, the DETF dismantled about 119 meth labs in the
county. Last year, the number was down to 14. Shanahan said the DETF
was able to drive down the number of meth producers by going after
the people who sold pseudoephedrine, the key ingredient of meth.

"What we did was turn to a more proactive approach, instead of
letting the criminal dictate the terms," Shanahan said.

The technique worked, driving the raw cost of pseudoephedrine from
$300 a case in 1997 to more than $4000 a case today.

Those results, however, do not diminish the need to keep enforcement
strong, Shanahan said.

"Methamphetamine has not really gone down - it is still there, but
home production is down," he said, as are the dangerous explosions
that accompanied many home-based meth operations.

Instead, meth dealers are turning more to organized criminal cartels
to supply the product for a demanding market. The DETF is addressing
the new model with more informants and undercover agents to penetrate
highly organized and sophisticated drug rings. COMBAT is the
mechanism that keeps the task force moving forward, Shanahan said.

"COMBAT allows us to respond in a dramatic way, without a lot of
bureaucratic delay," he said.

At the fair Monday, the DETF will lay out its operations and
successes for the public, in the hope that tax payers will see the
value of the COMBAT tax.

COMBAT, which stands for Community Backed Anti-Drug Tax, generates
about $18 million a year from a quarter-cent sales tax ear-marked
specifically for drug enforcement, prevention and treatment. Voters
first approved the COMBAT tax in 1989 and renewed it in 1995. The tax
must be renewed again before March 2004.

Last year, COMBAT organized its first Information and Effectiveness
Fair in Kansas City but this year's fair should be much broader in
scope, said COMBAT program administrator Jim Nunnelly.

"The fair is like an interactive annual report," Nunnelly said.
"People should come away from this with a real understanding of the
scope of the COMBAT program and a better understanding of the
complexity of COMBAT and the drug problem."

The COMBAT Information and Effectiveness Fair begins with a
recognition breakfast at 9:30 a.m. at the Adams Pointe Courtyard by
Marriott Hotel conference center. The hotel is at 1500 N.E. Coronado
Drive in Blue Springs, about three blocks south of Adams Dairy
Parkway. Following the breakfast, the information fair runs from 10
a.m. to 2 p.m. The public is encouraged to attend.

Along with the dozens of agencies at the fair, Nunnelly said several
program participants will be on hand to share their experiences with
COMBAT programs and the impact it had on their lives.

"It is one thing for us to extoll the virtues of COMBAT. It is quite
another to see it through the eyes of the people that have been
helped," he said.